A Sense of His Story
by Gimpy1
Summary: The memories in her head became stories in her notebook, tales of the man she loved and the life he was constantly running from. [LoganMarie, WolverineRogue]


**Title:** Sense of His Story  
**Author:** Dani  
**Rating:** R - for now.

**Disclaimer:** All I own is the plot and even then some is stolen from Cannon. No infringement is intended and I'm definitely not making anything from this.

**Warnings:** Swears in this chapter along with some mild sexual situations. Nothing too damaging for those virginal minds out there. Can't guarantee it will stay that way in later chapters.

**Spoilers:** Set after **X-Men United** with a few spoilers from **X-Men The Last Stand** without actually following much of the plot from that movie.

**Beta-ing:** Thanks go out to Pancho and Sherry in no specific order other than alphabetically! Love you both and thank you both for the amazing beta-ing you did for this. Especially you Sherry, thank you for forcing me to face some of the faults in this piece, despite my unwillingness to take it at first. (Though that was so long ago I wonder if you remember:P)

**Summary:** The memories in her head became stories in her notebook, tales of the man she loved and the life he was constantly running from.

**Author's Notes:** I started this piece over a month ago. It stemmed from a stellar bunny I got because of a LJ comment/conversation with a dear friend, though I doubt she'll remember it. I decided to keep it to myself, to write as much as I possibly could before posting. As I bridged into the fifth chapter I felt my want to write it wane. For a long while I've written nothing on it. I've barely even thought about it save for the ending to the fourth chapter. I decided it was high time that I start posting in the hopes of garnering a little enthusiasm from the readers.

To all those who leave comments, you are doing so for a cause. The more comments, the more chapters... I hope. sighs In the least I do hope you enjoy it.

Sense of History

-By Dani-

Out of every room amongst the hundreds the mansion contained, Marie always found the library to be the best place to sketch. It wasn't simply the silence that automatically came with the room title, she could find that in her private room that lay nestled at the end of the teachers wing, far from any other occupied room. It wasn't the waves of light the tall standing windows let in, because the entire manor was littered with windows just like them. No, it was more than that. There was a feeling in this room, a grand sense of history that seeped from the old woodwork, the ancient and musty paintings by artists long since dead hanging high on the walls, the musk of weathered books that filled her nose. It was the ambience that fueled her; let her nimble fingers scratch her drawing pencil along the contours of faded paper to create the images stored in her mind.

The simple act of pencil to paper was cathartic, forming the faces and places that tormented her mind in the middle of the night was a release. She didn't think herself an artist, to do so would be presumptuous, the description too wondrous for a simple southern girl such as herself. It had only been a short year since she'd started drawing at the urging of the professor, the man she deemed her father figure.

The nightmares had been getting worse and the memories of those she'd touched had started to filter into the days. Small things would set them off, a certain book she had to read for her college Literature class, a specific smell from her advanced Biology classes with Dr. McCoy. No one had noticed why she'd been acting odd but she knew, tried to deal with it on her own until the gentle professor suggested she write the memories down, take them from her mind and place them on paper.

That she was skeptical at first was to be expected. How could writing out the nightmares in detail, jotting down the waking dreams, keep them from surfacing? The professor was a smart man, though not for the reasons one would think. She still had the dreams, perhaps a little less frequently, but the act of putting them into words had transformed her. Preserving them became an obsession. Almost every free moment found her hovering over her notebooks, scribbling and sketching. Not because the act stopped the dreams, although they did lessen. She did it because every strike of dark gray pencil on paper brought her closer to the one untouchable, unreachable and most desired thing in her life.

It wasn't intentional. She hadn't started out with this in mind but as the days grew into weeks, and weeks into months, there was no stopping it. The memories in her head became stories in her notebook, tales of the man she loved and the life he was constantly running from. For each new tale she felt a little closer to understanding him, felt closer to him. It was a guilty pleasure she masked as a needed endeavor to keep her sanity from the nightmares. The truth was the deeper she delved into Logan's past, the shallower her sanity became.

He was so near to her in these books. Outside of them she was just a friend, a dear one, but nothing more. Outside of them he was a mystery to her, unreadable. At least on paper he was touchable and the contrast between the two worlds was silently driving her mad. There was no stopping for her though. She was addicted and if she could only have him in this non-fictional world of words and pictures that she tucked under her mattress at night then that's what she'd settle for.

"Wow." A voice suddenly intruded on her thoughts, the chair next to her pulling out and a bubbly Jubilee plunking down beside her.

Stunned by her visitor, it took Marie a moment to gather herself, the moment almost too long as the raven-haired girl leaned in. With wide, uncertain eyes, she watched as the tanned skin of Jubilee's cheek nearly brushed against her own paler one. Frozen in her spot, she waited for recognition to form on the girl's face, waited for her to realize how close she'd come to hurting herself. The fear never came as Jubilee draped herself along Marie's arm so her dark eyes could drink in the image of a naked blonde sprawled luxuriously amongst the swirled lines of penciled sheets.

That she was so close didn't seem to phase Jubilee and it forced Marie to relax, even allowed her a guiltless moment of basking. She reveled in the natural act of her friend rested against her, moved by the complete trust Jubilee obviously harbored despite her mutation.

Following Jubilee's gaze down to the paper, she stared at the image. The woman bore a hardened face bred of the trials and unfairness of the world, yet there was a certain vulnerability about her, an unguarded quality in her bareness. Marie took the moment to study her as her friend did the same, marveling at the nameless woman's ability to be darkly sullied yet utterly, openly natural.

"Who is she?" Jubilee questioned as her index finger gently followed the contours of the lush bed sheets near the bottom corner.

"I don't know," Marie admitted, pencil poised in her hand, deftly digging into the simple curve of the woman's hip, sharpening a shadow that didn't have to be there but for some reason she felt was required. The woman had no name, just a glimmering memory of a lust-filled night in a nondescript hotel in a nameless town somewhere other than where Marie was sitting right now.

Jubilee finally pulled back, still blissfully unaware of the danger she'd placed herself in or perhaps uncaring, Marie couldn't tell which. With a dubious look on her oriental features, she asked, "You mean you pulled that out of nowhere? Just conjured her up?"

Marie couldn't help but huff out a breathy laugh, she wasn't that good of an artist and she told Jubilee as much, stilling the pencil over the paper. "It's from memory." When a primly arched eyebrow rose mischievously, Marie knew she'd used the wrong words.

"You not telling me something here, Rogue?" Jubilee jabbed, her elbow digging softly into Marie's side, eyebrows suggestively motioning to the naked woman lounging on paper.

She wasn't necessarily offended; the prospect of touch from anyone was tempting beyond all reason, if it meant coming from the same sex she doubted her ability to say no despite her love for the male form. Of course that wasn't something you shared with the mansion's resident gossip hound. "Jubes," she groaned with a roll of her eyes. "You are such a child. I didn't mean my memory."

A wrinkle of disgust formed on the girl's face, a mind numbing prospect rolling through her mind that made her shudder as she gave voice to it. "Please don't tell me it's the old geyser's. That is just not a mental image I want."

"Don't worry, it's not Magneto's, it's uh… well-" She stuttered as she attempted to confess the truth that she had Logan's sex life traipsing around her mind; especially since she was talking to the mansion's resident 'mind in the gutter' slash 'gossip hound'. Then she realized that Jubilee was no longer paying any attention to her.

The chocolate of her eyes was pressed firmly over Marie's shoulder, the girl's lips forming a thin, unmovable line that she couldn't decipher. Intrigued, Marie shifted in her seat and craned her neck. The sight that greeted her wasn't so much horrifying, as it was humiliating, crushing and all together painful.

Near the back of the room, behind the last towering row of books on ancient history, deep in the corner to the point that neither girl could truly make them out, stood the objects of her pain. The girlish, innocent face of Kitty could barely be made out from behind Bobby's lean shoulders but the damning implication of pleasure was written boldly on her face.

"God, how can they do that in here? I mean he's practically fucking her against the wall," Jubilee muttered in disgust and true to her words, if it weren't for clothes the couple in question would in fact be breaking several of the professor's rules of conduct.

It wasn't the fact that it was Kitty and Bobby that hurt her. She was slowly getting over her failed relationship with the man. What hurt was that _she_ could touch him, was touching him in all the ways he deserved to be touched and Marie couldn't. Before the prickling in her eyes could fully manifest, she pried her eyes away, honing in on the shaded image of another touchable woman, who'd done deeds she would never be able to do, to a man she would never have.

"Don't they realize we're sitting right here?" Jubilee continued, her once bubbly face seething dangerous daggers at the not-so-indiscreet couple. "And she's like, what? A year younger than me so like three years younger than him. That's illegal in some states. Plus she looks twelve-"

"Jubilee," Marie interrupted, grateful for the loyal display of hatred but knowing the girl could get out of hand, as she tended to do. "Let it go."

"And let them maul each other right in front of us like animals?" She started to stand and Marie knew without a doubt she was more than willing to march over there, pry them apart and start reaming into them until someone either started crying or hitting. It wouldn't be the first time the girl had gotten herself into a fight and it was the last thing Marie wanted.

Wrapping her fingers tightly around the rising girl's arm, Marie tugged her back down, forcibly putting her back in her chair with a demanding look on her face. "I said let it go!" she whispered harshly, only releasing when she stopped fighting her. "I don't care what they do, when they do it or how they do it. Okay? I don't care."

"It's just mean and spiteful," she argued, fuming hotly. "Flaunting it like they're at some exhibitionists' convention."

That made Marie giggle which made Jubilee indignantly demand why. "I'm sorry, it's just," Marie bubbled out through her breathy laughs, "it's not like you haven't done the same thing back there with a few guys."

Her mouth dropped to retort back, to defend her decency but her gloss-covered lips quickly upturned, a cherry red devouring her olive colored cheeks. With the wind effectively gone from her sails the girl calmed a bit and sighed despondently. "It's just not fair, which you know, I know you know, but it's still not fair."

And it wasn't but Marie didn't want to discuss it, didn't want to think about it. For all intents and purposes the couple behind her wasn't there and the woman etched in pencil wasn't Logan's lover. Re-poising the pencil over the paper, she rubbed viciously along the outside edge until the tip of the pencil took on a steep point then slowly, diligently, she stroked the fine instrument along the supple curve of the woman's mouth, concentrating on the arc of her bottom lip. Jubilee took her silence in stride, sitting back in her chair and glaring hotly as the groping pair dipped further back into the corner until she lost sight of them behind the towering shelf.

"Shouldn't you be studying for your SATs?" Marie finally mumbled as she used the pad of her ring finger to smudge the shading on the paper.

"Right." Jubilee jolted from her slouched position, resting her elbows heavily on the table. "That's why I'm here. I know you took them years ago but I was hoping you, being the packrat that you are, might have your study guides lying around somewhere, possibly even old notes?"

Scoffing lightly, Marie turned more fully to her young friend, eyeing her questionably. "Storm has guides, Jubes. You just have to go ask her, and you should have your own notes."

Guilt swarmed the girl's face and she fidgeted in her seat. "Yeah well…"

Expelling a disbelieving breath, Marie sat back, resting her elbow on the arm of her chair, her cheek nestling softly in her hand. "No notes?"

"Nope."

Leering over at her playfully, Marie sighed again. "What would have happened if I didn't still have two year old notes, huh?"

"So you have them?" Jubilee brightened up at the prospect, her brows raising joyfully.

"That's not the point, Jubes."

"I know, I know, but seriously, my hand cramps up when I have to write so much and even when I do, it just vanishes by the next day and-"

"I get it," Marie interrupted, her free hand lifting to physically stem the flow of rambling words. "They're in my closet somewhere, I'll fish them out later."

"And the guide?" the girl asked hopefully, an impish grin on her face. When Marie rolled her eyes in exasperation, Jubilee instantly defended, "Yours will have notes in the margins!"

"Oh my god," Marie huffed, laughter mingling with her syllables. "You are the laziest person I have ever met."

"I'm not lazy! Just, you know, carefree. Who needs to be bogged down taking notes when I can just borrow from you," Jubilee offered as reason to which Marie snorted.

"Only you, only you," she mocked, shaking her head incredulously before returning to the almost complete sketch before her. Jubilee didn't move to leave, her eyes still peering over at her as she tried to concentrate on the image in her mind. "I'll get them to you by dinner, I swear, I'm almost done here anyway."

"That's not why I'm staring," she timidly started, her dark gaze shifting to the back corner of the room and back again. "You sure you want to stay in here, with, you know, _that_ going on back there?"

For a blissful moment Marie had managed to convince herself that they weren't there and now it came tumbling back, her hand unintentionally jerking at the sudden thought. Gripping the pencil tightly, she barely shifted to glance their way before shoving the pencil behind her ear and closing the notebook.

"Let's go," she rushed out, pushing violently back on the wooden chair, its clawed feet scratching soundly against the immaculately tiled floors. Ignoring the pitying yet proud smile her actions garnered from Jubilee, she pulled her book to her chest and started to walk out. She clung to the book feverishly, forcing herself to remember what it meant to her, the secret world it contained, not the harsh reality brutally whispering soft moans of pleasure in the back corner of the library that she would no longer call a sanctuary.

----

To be continued…

-Dani-


End file.
